Mali - Islamists Group Stone Couple To Death For Adultery

An al Qaeda-linked Islamic militant group in control of northern Mali stoned to death a married couple accused of engaging in extramarital affairs, the group's spokesman said.

The couple were publicly executed in the remote town of Aguelhok, near the vast West African nation's northern border with Algeria, on Sunday, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine group told tersters.

"These two people were married and had extra-conjugal relations. Our men on the ground in Aguelhok applied sharia (Islamic law)," said Sanda Ould Bounama, reached by telephone on Monday.

"They both died right away and even asked for this application. We don't have to answer to anyone over the application of sharia," he said.

Most people living in northern Mali have long practised Islam, but frustrations with the strict form of sharia being imposed by Islamists have sparked several protests in recent months.

Ansar Dine and well-armed allies, including al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA, have hijacked a separatist uprising by local Tuareg rebels and now control two-thirds of Mali's desert north, territory that includes the regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

Western and African governments are struggling to muster a response to the crisis as politicians in the capital Bamako continue to squabble over how the country should be governed after a March coup removed the country's president.